Salon.com > Free Speech

High schooler suspended for poem on understanding Adam Lanza

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:50:00 +0000

A 17-year-old high school student in San Francisco has been suspended indefinitely after she wrote a poem in her personal notebook which included the lines, "I understand the killings in Connecticut; I understand why he pulled the trigger."

A teacher at the Life Learning Academy found Courtni Webb's notebook and reported the poem to the principal who suspended the student. The school district is now deciding whether and when Webb can return to the small vocational school. Webb and her mother have reached out to the media to decry the school's actions.

They told NBC's Today that Webb was simply expressing herself and exploring ideas about helplessness and darkness that she believed were behind the Newtown massacre. "Never in my life have I heard that you couldn't mention a tragedy that happened. I didn't say that I agree with it, I said I simply understand it" Webb told Today, noting that the she felt the school was making her look like "a monster." Her mother said that she believes her daughter's free speech is being violated.

Via NBC:

Bahrain bans all protest gatherings

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:54:00 +0000

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain imposed emergency-style rules Tuesday banning all protest gatherings and threating legal action against groups considered backing escalating demonstrations and clashes in the strategic Gulf kingdom.

The order, announced by the Interior Ministry, is the most sweeping attempt to quash the kingdom’s anti-government uprising since martial law rules were in effect during the early months of unrest last year. It sharply increases pressure on political groups from Bahrain’s Shiite Muslim majority, which has led the protests seeking a greater political voice in the Sunni Muslim-ruled nation.

Tougher steps against opposition groups could raise complications for Washington and other Western allies that have stood by Bahrain’s monarchy during more than 20 months of unrest. The U.S. has important military bonds with Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, but it also has called for increased efforts at dialogue to ease the tensions.

Shiites comprise about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 citizens, but claim they face systematic discrimination such as being denied top political and security posts. The Sunni monarchy has made a series of concessions — including giving more powers to the elected parliament — but opposition groups say the reforms do little to loosen the ruling family’s hold on power.

Will blasphemy be criminalized?

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:22:00 +0000

The long-standing United Nations debate over free speech and its limitations will take particular precedence this week in light of the recent global reaction to an anti-Islam YouTube clip.

A number of Muslim leaders, including Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, will argue this week that blasphemy should (in some way) be criminalized under international law. Meanwhile, the majority of Western leaders will continue to push back against such an idea, arguing (as they have for some years) that such blasphemy laws could be used to punish, imprison or even execute dissidents under certain regimes.

According to a McClatchy Newspapers report:

Muslims clash with police in Europe

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:48:00 +0000

The rage over a US-made anti-Islamic video spread to Europe over the weekend, when clashes took place between protesters and police in several cities even as mainstream Muslim community leaders joined European governments in condemning violence sparked by the film.

French police arrested 150 demonstrators who gathered outside the US embassy in Paris on Saturday, and 250 protesters were detained in Belgium over the weekend after confrontations in the country's second city, Antwerp. Around 300 people chanted anti-US slogans outside the American Embassy in London on Sunday.

Muslim leaders in France and Belgium were quick to condemn the violence despite their outrage over the video, which mocks the Prophet Muhammad.

"Don't associate French Muslims with these marginalized events," said Mohamed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim Religion. "Muslims should use legal and just means to defend their religion."

Far right: Our speech is freer!

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:22:00 +0000

A month ago, when an armed man attacked the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., conservatives blamed the fact that the organization had been labeled a “hate group” for inciting the attack. Never mind that the hate group label was intended to condemn the sort of violence that the Family Research Council’s extreme homophobic vitriol encourages. Tony Perkins, head of the FRC, said that groups that labeled his organization a hate group should be “held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.”

But now, when an offensive anti-Islam film promoted by a right-wing Christian preacher is clearly to blame for violent riots spreading thought the Middle East and appeared to have played a role in the death of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, the far right in America is defending extremist rhetoric against Islam and attacking the Obama administration for condemning the inflammatory film. Blind to the diplomatic urgency of quelling violence, let alone their own hypocrisy, conservatives joined Mitt Romney in accusing the president of not standing up for free speech.

Should “Sam Bacile” be jailed?

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:45:00 +0000

What does it take to be a professor at an Ivy League university and to get an opinion published in USA Today?

Anthea Butler is an associate professor of religious studies at Penn. Yesterday she called for the arrest of "Sam Bacile" — the "person" associated with the anti-Islam movie associated with violent riots in Libya and Egypt. I say "Sam Bacile" and "person" because it appears increasingly likely that "Sam Bacile" is a made-up persona, possibly of a convicted fraudster named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. (Moreover, it's increasingly in doubt whether the worst violence in the embassy attacks was inspired by the film or just used by the anti-film mobs as an opportunity to launch an assault.) Anyway, Butler called for his arrest on her Twitter account, then swiftly made her account private when criticized.

Will UC ban “hate speech”?

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 17:32:00 +0000

[UPDATED]

Does the University of California forbid the expression of some disfavored political views on its campuses?

Not yet. But if the UC's Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion has its way, it might start.

Last month, that council issued its "Jewish Student Campus Climate Fact-Finding Team Report & Recommendations." Through that report, the council recommends that the UC system adopt ill-defined hate speech codes and prohibit "hate organizations" from speaking on UC campuses. Those policies would inevitably trigger litigation against the cash-strapped UC, but the council is full of the sort of you-can-take-that-guy bravado-by-proxy that inebriated friends display in late-night bar fights: "The Team recognizes that changes to UC hate speech policies may result in legal challenge, but offer [sic] that UC accept the challenge."